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few examples off the top of my head are ancient Caananite cities and England. In ancient Caanan there was a massive uprising of the poor and working class and they completely destroyed their ruling class. They then returned to an agricultural life style. In England this happened as well. When Europe invaded they took the land and forced everybody into cities by making it too expensive for them to live an agricultural lifestyle.

Ancient Caanan, which is in the "myths and legends" category, and I'm not familiar with this particular story, but a quick wiki-skim says, "conquered, then conquered again, then conquered some more, then the major empire collapsed and thousands dies, then more conquered, etc." Considering it was "in/on the way" to a lot of major imperial powers of ancient mediterraneanica (Yeah, that's SO not a word but I don't care) this isn't much of a surprise.

And England...when? Your description seems to be the reverse, where evil outsider Europeans (Romans? throw me a bone here) conquered them and forced them to stop living as subsistence farmers.

No, these examples are nonsensically presented.

Meanwhile, in Liberia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and the like where The State was crushed or at least resisted we have thugs and gangs and warlords and horrors so bad the west doesn't hear about them due to decency laws. But it's okay because those places would be fine if we could just somehow quarantine the entire area so blood diamonds couldn't flow out and guns couldn't flow in, and if we reduced the general population by 90% so small tribal groups which somehow overcame their natural tendency to produce autocratic chieftains would never meet and fight for resources.

The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.

This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.

It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses. The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event.

How exactly is "competition in justice" a good thing?

In the Jim Crow South, there was "competition in justice" between the local governments that wanted to throw uppity black men in prison, and the lynch mobs that wanted to torture and murder those same black men as public entertainment.

The black men could go get help from an outside source in an anarchist society, but if they are racist too it's unlikely a democracy would help them any better. If all of society is racist, it doesn't matter if you have a state or not.

Actually no. The US Supreme Court is often what prevents the state from being racist towards people. The state is in fact one of the major reasons minorities in America can be expected to be treated fairly to at least some degree by their community. Whereas without it they are at the mercy of everyone around them.

The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.

This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.

Just so I'm clear here.

You see in the Guilded Age large businesses with a monopoly of force. You see that force abused by those businesses. You think if there was no state, which there already effectively wasn't, those businesses wouldn't have done the exact same thing? Are you not aware it was the government that actually reigned them in and stopped them?

Eventually when people complained enough the government stopped the abuse of big business. It took a long time and thousands of lives though. It would have ended a lot sooner though had people been able to address the problems directly.

They tried to deal with it directly. With the free market. It failed. What else would you have them do? Start a war with the companies and lose thousands of lives? Quite possibly losing anyway?

I mean what would prevent a powerful minority from having superior weapons and just forcing people to do what they want in your system? I mean actually prevent. Not what you hope or think would prevent.

There has never been a free market in American history, ever. The Battle of Blair Mountain only failed because the US came in and stopped them.

>I mean what would prevent a powerful minority from having superior weapons and just forcing people to do what they want in your system? I mean actually prevent. Not what you hope or think would prevent.

How would I know how a hypothetical war would play out? Maybe you can assassinate the leaders of the powerful minority. What's to stop people from doing this now? What's to stop all the governments from nuking each other? What's to stop America and Europe from joining forces and taking over the middle east or China?

The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.

This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.

It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses. The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event.

How exactly is "competition in justice" a good thing?

In the Jim Crow South, there was "competition in justice" between the local governments that wanted to throw uppity black men in prison, and the lynch mobs that wanted to torture and murder those same black men as public entertainment.

The black men could go get help from an outside source in an anarchist society, but if they are racist too it's unlikely a democracy would help them any better. If all of society is racist, it doesn't matter if you have a state or not.

So rather than having those people oppressed by their local community being able to get help from an outside source known as "the state", they should instead get help from an outside source that's what, exactly?

Another community willing to help them. There were plenty of people willing to risk their lives being bussed to the south, why wouldn't there be people willing to stop this as well?

That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.

Actually it would. Stopping the enforcement of cocaine and heroin would drastically cut the cost of production for drug cartels. The only change would be instead of being called cartels, they would be called corporations. See the history of a small corporation called Phillip Morris and the Marlborough Man.

Its not like the market would go away. People would still try drugs and get hooked.

I think you miss the argument FOR legalization, which is that arresting drug users is expensive and having violent cartels produce the stuff is more harmful then corporations THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN TAX doing it.

Only idiots think calling of the cops and letting the drug scene devolve into a free for all is an improvement. What most people want when they talk about drug legalization is a change of government policy, not the absence of government itself. They want to make being a drug user legal, which it currently isn't.

few examples off the top of my head are ancient Caananite cities and England. In ancient Caanan there was a massive uprising of the poor and working class and they completely destroyed their ruling class. They then returned to an agricultural life style. In England this happened as well. When Europe invaded they took the land and forced everybody into cities by making it too expensive for them to live an agricultural lifestyle.

Ancient Caanan, which is in the "myths and legends" category, and I'm not familiar with this particular story, but a quick wiki-skim says, "conquered, then conquered again, then conquered some more, then the major empire collapsed and thousands dies, then more conquered, etc." Considering it was "in/on the way" to a lot of major imperial powers of ancient mediterraneanica (Yeah, that's SO not a word but I don't care) this isn't much of a surprise.

And England...when? Your description seems to be the reverse, where evil outsider Europeans (Romans? throw me a bone here) conquered them and forced them to stop living as subsistence farmers.

No, these examples are nonsensically presented.

Meanwhile, in Liberia, Somalia, Sierra Leone, and the like where The State was crushed or at least resisted we have thugs and gangs and warlords and horrors so bad the west doesn't hear about them due to decency laws. But it's okay because those places would be fine if we could just somehow quarantine the entire area so blood diamonds couldn't flow out and guns couldn't flow in, and if we reduced the general population by 90% so small tribal groups which somehow overcame their natural tendency to produce autocratic chieftains would never meet and fight for resources.

Caanan existed, just not the mythological biblical one. There's a NOVA documentary about this if you're interested. And in the England example I'm talking about the Normans.

In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.

And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?

That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.

So we need more mob justice? What happens if society decides the jews are the reason the economy is bad?

That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.

Actually it would. Stopping the enforcement of cocaine and heroin would drastically cut the cost of production for drug cartels. The only change would be instead of being called cartels, they would be called corporations. See the history of a small corporation called Phillip Morris and the Marlborough Man.

Its not like the market would go away. People would still try drugs and get hooked.

I think you miss the argument FOR legalization, which is that arresting drug users is expensive and having violent cartels produce the stuff is more harmful then corporations THAT THE GOVERNMENT CAN TAX doing it.

Only idiots think calling of the cops and letting the drug scene devolve into a free for all is an improvement. What most people want when they talk about drug legalization is a change of government policy, not the absence of government itself. They want to make being a drug user legal, which it currently isn't.

Depends on how you define 'stronger'. It would allow them to make their businesses legitimate, which would allow them to grow. They would likely become corporations, and they would be taxed. But the violence would stop.

The reason drugs should be legal is because people have the right to decide what they put in their bodies, not the government. The violence ending and the money not being wasted are just the reasons given to people who can't legitimize smaller government or think drugs are bad.

There has never been a free market in American history, ever. The Battle of Blair Mountain only failed because the US came in and stopped them.

So you would have preferred they kept fighting? To what end? The company hiring mercenaries to kill the miners?

How would I know how a hypothetical war would play out? Maybe you can assassinate the leaders of the powerful minority. What's to stop people from doing this now? What's to stop all the governments from nuking each other? What's to stop America and Europe from joining forces and taking over the middle east or China?

The existence of powerful states who have no desire to collapse because of a war between each other. Meanwhile we do go in to much weaker states and do that sort of thing. Because they aren't a threat. Now please answer the question. What prevents a minority from seizing power and using force to take advantage of everyone else with their advantage?

In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.

And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?

That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.

So we need more mob justice? What happens if society decides the jews are the reason the economy is bad?

Depends on how you define 'stronger'. It would allow them to make their businesses legitimate, which would allow them to grow. They would likely become corporations, and they would be taxed. But the violence would stop.

Taxed by who?

Cause I'm not sure if you noticed but plenty of people will violently resist taxation.

In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.

And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?

That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.

So we need more mob justice? What happens if society decides the jews are the reason the economy is bad?

If all of society decided that? A democracy wouldn't prevent that.

It doesn't have to be all, just a majority. And a democracy did prevent just that. Multiple times the government has stepped in and prevented the abuse of minorities, even when it was against the majority's wishes.

>I mean what would prevent a powerful minority from having superior weapons and just forcing people to do what they want in your system? I mean actually prevent. Not what you hope or think would prevent.

How would I know how a hypothetical war would play out? Maybe you can assassinate the leaders of the powerful minority. What's to stop people from doing this now? What's to stop all the governments from nuking each other? What's to stop America and Europe from joining forces and taking over the middle east or China?

Well, right now, if Bill Gates decides he wants to hire mercenaries, arm them, and use them to take my house, the state will use its superior forces (police, military) in order to stop his men and imprison him for crimes. If he bribes the governor to let him out of prison, the people will recall the governor and the federal government will prosecute him. If he bribes the president, the people will call on Congress to impeach the president. This will never happen, because Bill Gates is probably a nice guy; but if he weren't a nice guy, the threat of all this unbeatable state action against him would deter him from taking my house.

If there were no state, can I rely on my neighbors to defend my house with their lives? If he bribes my neighbors to look the other way, do I have any further recourse? I can try and convince enough people to help me take him down, but without a state, there's no longer a superior force capable of doing so--untrained individuals with small arms, basically. There's no state, which means there's no ingrained, understood mechanism for dealing with this issue--which means there is no deterrence, and if Gates comes to ruin months after he took my house, well, I'm still out a house.

Our current system works effectively to prevent warlords and vigilantes because it combines social pressure with state force. Take away either of those two factors and the system stops working.

In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.

And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?

That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.

So we need more mob justice? What happens if society decides the jews are the reason the economy is bad?

If all of society decided that? A democracy wouldn't prevent that.

These arguments over "isn't any better" and "isn't any worse" are kinda lame.

Perhaps we could focus on the actual benefits to anarchy, the actual benefits to The State, as well as the actual problems with anarchy and the actual problems of The State. Then we do a cost / benefit analysis, and solve the damn problem.

What does The State do well?
What problems are involved in The State?

What does anarchy do well?
What problems are involved in anarchy?

Make the list, do some math, solve the debate.

Edit: We'd have to agree upon some rubric by which to discern "better" and "worse", of course. But if we could agree on that, then it seems like we could make some progress. Or at least solidify the points about which we're arguing.

There has never been a free market in American history, ever. The Battle of Blair Mountain only failed because the US came in and stopped them.

So you would have preferred they kept fighting? To what end? The company hiring mercenaries to kill the miners?

How would I know how a hypothetical war would play out? Maybe you can assassinate the leaders of the powerful minority. What's to stop people from doing this now? What's to stop all the governments from nuking each other? What's to stop America and Europe from joining forces and taking over the middle east or China?

The existence of powerful states who have no desire to collapse because of a war between each other. Meanwhile we do go in to much weaker states and do that sort of thing. Because they aren't a threat. Now please answer the question. What prevents a minority from seizing power and using force to take advantage of everyone else with their advantage?

Another community willing to help them. There were plenty of people willing to risk their lives being bussed to the south, why wouldn't there be people willing to stop this as well?

A community organized, directed, and most importantly coerced by a central government to go coerce other people.

>So you would have preferred they kept fighting? To what end? The company hiring mercenaries to kill the miners?

I would like to have seen them take the mines for themselves. If the company hired mercenaries, I would like to see the miners get outside reinforcements. I don't know if they would have fought to the very last, but if they did then they fought for their freedom, and were going to die in the mines anyways had they done nothing. What would you have them do?

>What prevents a minority from seizing power and using force to take advantage of everyone else with their advantage?

Society. People who don't like what they are doing and taking up arms to stop them.

>A community organized, directed, and most importantly coerced by a central government to go coerce other people.

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

Depends on how you define 'stronger'. It would allow them to make their businesses legitimate, which would allow them to grow. They would likely become corporations, and they would be taxed. But the violence would stop.

Taxed by who?

Cause I'm not sure if you noticed but plenty of people will violently resist taxation.

And your nonexistent government presumably will not use coercion.

We're talking about in current society. Look at the context of those posts.

In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.

And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?

That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.

So we need more mob justice? What happens if society decides the jews are the reason the economy is bad?

If all of society decided that? A democracy wouldn't prevent that.

It doesn't have to be all, just a majority. And a democracy did prevent just that. Multiple times the government has stepped in and prevented the abuse of minorities, even when it was against the majority's wishes.

Then what would the problem be in an anarchist society when the majority feel that oppressing minorities is wrong?

In an anarchist society, the minorities could seek help from others just as they could seek help from the state today. The difference is that individuals would be far more efficient than the state, and they don't have to wait for the state to come up with the laws that support them.

Depends on how you define 'stronger'. It would allow them to make their businesses legitimate, which would allow them to grow. They would likely become corporations, and they would be taxed. But the violence would stop.

Taxed by who?

Cause I'm not sure if you noticed but plenty of people will violently resist taxation.

And your nonexistent government presumably will not use coercion.

Taxation is theft in a anarchist society. After all, by what right does government demand the sweat of these hard working drug cartels brow?

They are just selling a product. They are selling their private property, to other private citizens. The fact that said private citizens might become sick is their look out. As is the fact that said private citizens might commit crimes to buy drugs. The Drug dealer isn't the one stealing, he is just selling a perfectly legal product. Same as a gun dealer.

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

I'm confused.

In an anarchist society:

1) There is no violence or justice.
2) There is no monopoly on violence and justice.
3) The monopoly on violence and justice is distributed evenly among everyone, thus negating the power of the monopoly.

You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad". I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

On violence and justice. The state makes all the laws and is the only one allowed to use violence to enforce them in most cases. Of course you COULD try to run your own courts and police as a community, this has been tried before, but is usually stopped by the state. The state does give permits to security forces, but the security force is required to call the police to handle a situation except in extreme situations involving life or death.

This is inaccurate. While it is sometimes the case, it isn't in the case of modern democracies. People have willingly delegated that power to elected officials/judges/juries/law enforcement officers. "Running our own courts and police" is what our society is doing right now. As a society, we can't all vote for every law, so we've elected officials to vote laws in/out. We can't all enforce those laws, so we've delegated that responsibility to law enforcement. We can't participate in every ruling so we've appointed judges and juries to do so.

Our current system has been (and still is) shaped by a never-ending, iterative process. It didn't spring up from nothingness. You can't simply scrap the concept of state and start over because A, B and C aren't working fine, while disregarding everything it's doing right, and all that it was doing wrong but has been fixed/improved over the ages.

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

I'm confused.

In an anarchist society:

1) There is no violence or justice.
2) There is no monopoly on violence and justice.
3) The monopoly on violence and justice is distributed evenly among everyone, thus negating the power of the monopoly.

You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad". I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

>1) There is no violence or justice.

In an anarchist society there would be violence, it's not a utopia, of course there would be problems. But there would also be justice. People want justice, people want protection from mob rule, and there would be people who provide these services.

>You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad".

Bad is subjective. It's certainly inefficient, it also allows for corruption. If you're only allowed to use state sponsored courts, and all the judges are corrupt in some way, and you don't have the money to appeal to a higher court, where do you go for justice?

>I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

If people want to use democracy, sure. Problems would be handled by individuals.

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

I'm confused.

In an anarchist society:

1) There is no violence or justice.
2) There is no monopoly on violence and justice.
3) The monopoly on violence and justice is distributed evenly among everyone, thus negating the power of the monopoly.

You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad". I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

>1) There is no violence or justice.

In an anarchist society there would be violence, it's not a utopia, of course there would be problems. But there would also be justice. People want justice, people want protection from mob rule, and there would be people who provide these services.

>You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad".

Bad is subjective. It's certainly inefficient, it also allows for corruption. If you're only allowed to use state sponsored courts, and all the judges are corrupt in some way, and you don't have the money to appeal to a higher court, where do you go for justice?

>I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

If people want to use democracy, sure. Problems would be handled by individuals.

Bad is subjective. It's certainly inefficient, it also allows for corruption. If you're only allowed to use state sponsored courts, and all the judges are corrupt in some way, and you don't have the money to appeal to a higher court, where do you go for justice?

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

I'm confused.

In an anarchist society:

1) There is no violence or justice.
2) There is no monopoly on violence and justice.
3) The monopoly on violence and justice is distributed evenly among everyone, thus negating the power of the monopoly.

You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad". I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

>1) There is no violence or justice.

In an anarchist society there would be violence, it's not a utopia, of course there would be problems. But there would also be justice. People want justice, people want protection from mob rule, and there would be people who provide these services.

>You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad".

Bad is subjective. It's certainly inefficient, it also allows for corruption. If you're only allowed to use state sponsored courts, and all the judges are corrupt in some way, and you don't have the money to appeal to a higher court, where do you go for justice?

>I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

If people want to use democracy, sure. Problems would be handled by individuals.

Democratic anarchists are a thing?

No, but not everybody in an voluntary society would be anarchists, there would be all kinds of systems.

On violence and justice. The state makes all the laws and is the only one allowed to use violence to enforce them in most cases. Of course you COULD try to run your own courts and police as a community, this has been tried before, but is usually stopped by the state. The state does give permits to security forces, but the security force is required to call the police to handle a situation except in extreme situations involving life or death.

This is inaccurate. While it is sometimes the case, it isn't in the case of modern democracies. People have willingly delegated that power to elected officials/judges/juries/law enforcement officers. "Running our own courts and police" is what our society is doing right now. As a society, we can't all vote for every law, so we've elected officials to vote laws in/out. We can't all enforce those laws, so we've delegated that responsibility to law enforcement. We can't participate in every ruling so we've appointed judges and juries to do so.

Our current system has been (and still is) shaped by a never-ending, iterative process. It didn't spring up from nothingness. You can't simply scrap the concept of state and start over because A, B and C aren't working fine, while disregarding everything it's doing right, and all that it was doing wrong but has been fixed/improved over the ages.

The state does do some good things, sure, and it has gotten better, but you shouldn't throw out the idea of no state altogether when it could be better. In a voluntary society, would there be a war on drugs, or the Vietnam war, or the war in the middle east? What would society look like if you chose what your taxes went towards?

Bad is subjective. It's certainly inefficient, it also allows for corruption. If you're only allowed to use state sponsored courts, and all the judges are corrupt in some way, and you don't have the money to appeal to a higher court, where do you go for justice?

Voting?

That doesn't work very well. Voting with your wallet however, that would be interesting. I would love to see voluntary taxes.

Caanan existed, just not the mythological biblical one. There's a NOVA documentary about this if you're interested. And in the England example I'm talking about the Normans.

Good grief, the silly-goose history, it burns.

The "mythological biblical one" existed. Canaan is a geographical place, not a unified country. In "ancient" times, which you don't specify from your unnamed NOVA documentary, the primary political organizations were city-states where the religious and political/military leadership were a unified thing. The reason the Bible is always griping about the damn Canaanites is that they were the Israelites' neighbors. Saying "ancient Canaan" is about as silly as "England" - pretending that centuries, even millenia, of history involving large geographic areas and many waves of ethnic, religious and social groups can be collapsed into a single example.

So, where in ancient Canaan did this uprising by the poor happen and when? Did these successful rebels in fact establish an anarchist state? Do you believe there was no "agricultural life style" prior to the uprising?

Please don't waste everybody's time pointing to history, when you define history as "oh, I dunno, a while ago in this one place".

I would like to have seen them take the mines for themselves. If the company hired mercenaries, I would like to see the miners get outside reinforcements. I don't know if they would have fought to the very last, but if they did then they fought for their freedom, and were going to die in the mines anyways had they done nothing. What would you have them do?

Lobby their government representatives to improve regulations. Which is what American workers eventually did do. And it worked!

Far better than them getting a bunch of people killed only to fail to superior power ever did.

>What prevents a minority from seizing power and using force to take advantage of everyone else with their advantage?

Society. People who don't like what they are doing and taking up arms to stop them.

But they're more powerful than them. They seized power and now have the advantage. The guy with the gun is now in charge. How is he to be stopped?

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

But not when it's just a bunch of "communities" slaughtering each other?

Then what would the problem be in an anarchist society when the majority feel that oppressing minorities is wrong?

You claimed a democracy would not prevent a majority from abusing a minority. But this is false. America prevents this with the government. Even if the majority loathes a minority, they can do nothing about it without going up against the state protecting minority rights. In America majorities are routinely prevented from abusing minorities. This is because of the state. Even if a majority group wants to eliminate a far weaker minority, the state prevents them from doing so.

In your anarchy there's nothing to prevent the far stronger majority. Nothing. When you're the minority unless you have some advantage, you're at the mercy of the majority when there's no government.

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

I'm confused.

In an anarchist society:

1) There is no violence or justice.
2) There is no monopoly on violence and justice.
3) The monopoly on violence and justice is distributed evenly among everyone, thus negating the power of the monopoly.

You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad". I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

>1) There is no violence or justice.

In an anarchist society there would be violence, it's not a utopia, of course there would be problems. But there would also be justice. People want justice, people want protection from mob rule, and there would be people who provide these services.

>You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad".

Bad is subjective. It's certainly inefficient, it also allows for corruption. If you're only allowed to use state sponsored courts, and all the judges are corrupt in some way, and you don't have the money to appeal to a higher court, where do you go for justice?

>I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

If people want to use democracy, sure. Problems would be handled by individuals.

Democratic anarchists are a thing?

No, but not everybody in an voluntary society would be anarchists, there would be all kinds of systems.

That doesn't work very well. Voting with your wallet however, that would be interesting. I would love to see voluntary taxes.

Have you ever had one of those pizza parties where it's time to collect the money and it comes up short somehow? And everybody swears they put in their share, but somehow you're off several bucks and you don't have enough for the tip? Welcome to a small preview of what "voluntary taxes" would be like.

Hell, we NOW have a situation where people simultaneously complain about cuts to government services (that affect them) and complain that taxes are too high. People insist they "don't get government benefits" when they receive all kinds of welfare. I see no reason to assume people would be any more honest or logical in an anarchist collective.

Your use of terms like 'society' or 'state' is somewhat vague and/or nebulous. I believe that it may be helpful to your argument to clearly define or set parameters for these different abstract concepts you keep referring to.

Without a state (specifically the soviet union) testing out the oral polio vaccine developed in the US we would likely still have polio as a major disease prevalent across the world, rather then isolated in a few near-stateless areas.

No one in the US wanted to voluntarily run a trial, while in the soviet union it took a few phone calls to the right people to get a large scale test and eventually a full scale campaign to vaccinate almost the entire population.

What would society look like if you chose what your taxes went towards?

Also I would think lots of tax money would end up in the pocket of companies that could put out effective advertising campaigns to scare people into wanting to fund their projects.

He's a superhumanly strong soccer-playing romance novelist possessed of the uncanny powers of an insect. She's a beautiful African-American doctor with her own daytime radio talk show. They fight crime!

I would like to have seen them take the mines for themselves. If the company hired mercenaries, I would like to see the miners get outside reinforcements. I don't know if they would have fought to the very last, but if they did then they fought for their freedom, and were going to die in the mines anyways had they done nothing. What would you have them do?

Lobby their government representatives to improve regulations. Which is what American workers eventually did do. And it worked!

Far better than them getting a bunch of people killed only to fail to superior power ever did.

>What prevents a minority from seizing power and using force to take advantage of everyone else with their advantage?

Society. People who don't like what they are doing and taking up arms to stop them.

But they're more powerful than them. They seized power and now have the advantage. The guy with the gun is now in charge. How is he to be stopped?

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

But not when it's just a bunch of "communities" slaughtering each other?

Then what would the problem be in an anarchist society when the majority feel that oppressing minorities is wrong?

You claimed a democracy would not prevent a majority from abusing a minority. But this is false. America prevents this with the government. Even if the majority loathes a minority, they can do nothing about it without going up against the state protecting minority rights. In America majorities are routinely prevented from abusing minorities. This is because of the state. Even if a majority group wants to eliminate a far weaker minority, the state prevents them from doing so.

In your anarchy there's nothing to prevent the far stronger majority. Nothing. When you're the minority unless you have some advantage, you're at the mercy of the majority when there's no government.

>Lobby their government representatives to improve regulations. Which is what American workers eventually did do. And it worked!

And the Jews should have petitioned their government, and the victims of the Gulags should have done the same. It works so well doesn't it? The Virginia coal miners didn't start the fight, the coal company came in with a frikkin' tank and started slaughtering their families. There was a massive build up, all kinds of things were tried to get a better working environment. They didn't just up and grab guns.

>You claimed a democracy would not prevent a majority from abusing a minority. But this is false.

This is all democracy is. Why do you think we have so many checks and balances? The founding fathers knew this would be a problem, they knew it would be a huge problem, but they couldn't think of a better way to do it so they just said 'please don't form factions! For the love of god don't form factions!' Of course now there are better systems but we can't get them in place without changing the constitution, which we can't do because our government has been corrupted to the point where it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to try and get enough congressmen in.

>Even if a majority group wants to eliminate a far weaker minority, the state prevents them from doing so.

This isn't the case at all. The state has been gamed to the point where it easily enables majority rule.

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

I'm confused.

In an anarchist society:

1) There is no violence or justice.
2) There is no monopoly on violence and justice.
3) The monopoly on violence and justice is distributed evenly among everyone, thus negating the power of the monopoly.

You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad". I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

>1) There is no violence or justice.

In an anarchist society there would be violence, it's not a utopia, of course there would be problems. But there would also be justice. People want justice, people want protection from mob rule, and there would be people who provide these services.

>You keep using that phrase "monopoly on violence and justice", and I get the feeling that it's "bad".

Bad is subjective. It's certainly inefficient, it also allows for corruption. If you're only allowed to use state sponsored courts, and all the judges are corrupt in some way, and you don't have the money to appeal to a higher court, where do you go for justice?

>I'm not sure how violence and justice would be handled in an anarchist organization. is it a pure democracy thing? or something else?

If people want to use democracy, sure. Problems would be handled by individuals.

Democratic anarchists are a thing?

No, but not everybody in an voluntary society would be anarchists, there would be all kinds of systems.

But no "State" systems, right?

Possibly, it depends on how threatening they would be. People would be cautious.

On violence and justice. The state makes all the laws and is the only one allowed to use violence to enforce them in most cases. Of course you COULD try to run your own courts and police as a community, this has been tried before, but is usually stopped by the state. The state does give permits to security forces, but the security force is required to call the police to handle a situation except in extreme situations involving life or death.

This is inaccurate. While it is sometimes the case, it isn't in the case of modern democracies. People have willingly delegated that power to elected officials/judges/juries/law enforcement officers. "Running our own courts and police" is what our society is doing right now. As a society, we can't all vote for every law, so we've elected officials to vote laws in/out. We can't all enforce those laws, so we've delegated that responsibility to law enforcement. We can't participate in every ruling so we've appointed judges and juries to do so.

Our current system has been (and still is) shaped by a never-ending, iterative process. It didn't spring up from nothingness. You can't simply scrap the concept of state and start over because A, B and C aren't working fine, while disregarding everything it's doing right, and all that it was doing wrong but has been fixed/improved over the ages.

The state does do some good things, sure, and it has gotten better, but you shouldn't throw out the idea of no state altogether when it could be better. In a voluntary society, would there be a war on drugs, or the Vietnam war, or the war in the middle east? What would society look like if you chose what your taxes went towards?

In a voluntary society with no state, drug use would probably result in harsh penalties, addiction treated with expulsion from the community (tantamount to a death sentence). This assuming that social attitudes towards drugs remain the same--they might get worse, considering that drug use is at worst destructive to the community and at best can still prevent users from contributing their fair share to the community (sit around and smoke weed when there's farming to be done? not in MY anarcho-community).

The wars with Vietnam or the Middle East would be replaced with wars of offense or defense with neighboring communities over resources.

What you're missing about the racial examples, by the way, is that neither democracy nor anarchy is capable of protecting minorities when 100% of the non-minority population chooses to discriminate against them. But democracy can protect minorities with a much higher percentage of bigots than anarchy, because democracy requires a true majority (and in cases like the US, there are even higher barriers) in order to remove minority rights, whereas anarchy only requires a plurality (if the bigoted group is larger than the minority or apathetic groups, it wins).

Your use of terms like 'society' or 'state' is somewhat vague and/or nebulous. I believe that it may be helpful to your argument to clearly define or set parameters for these different abstract concepts you keep referring to.

That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.

Could you please provide a clear definition of what constitutes a 'state"?

An entity with a monopoly coercivly maintained on violence and justice over a geographical area.

Thank you!

"An entity": Does this mean a discrete entity, such as a particular human being, a particular rock, or a particular duck? Or an abstractive entity such as a "team" or "organization"? I'm asking, "Can a particular king / pimp / general be a State?" It would seem to me that a particular person can coercively maintain a monopoly via violence over a geographical area. That's what pimps and drug lords do to maintain their markets. So, would these discrete individuals be states?

"monopoly coercivly maintained": A monopoly of what? Is this an economic monopoly? Or can this be a monopoly of a particular resource? Could a beet farmer maintain a monopoly over beets via coercion and, so, be a "state"?

"on violence and justice": Not sure what this means. Do you mean that The State has a monopoly on violence and justice? Or that The State has a monopoly on violence, and so is unjust? Or is it that The State gets to define what justice is, and in so doing it serves its own needs?

"over a geographical area": Is there a minimum size requirement? Any spatio-temporal region will cover a geographical area. A drunkard father could rule over his home via his monopoly of violent tendencies. Would the drunk father, in this scenario, be a State?

In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.

>A monopoly of what?

On violence and justice. The state makes all the laws and is the only one allowed to use violence to enforce them in most cases. Of course you COULD try to run your own courts and police as a community, this has been tried before, but is usually stopped by the state. The state does give permits to security forces, but the security force is required to call the police to handle a situation except in extreme situations involving life or death.

>Is there a minimum size requirement?
This is very difficult to define, and is one reason people consider states to be illegitimate. Your example is good, is a drunk father ruling over his home with violence a state? Is he sovereign? What makes a state sovereign? There ability to enforce its laws? Other entities agreeing on its sovereignty? If I could get a million people to sign a petition saying I'm a sovereign state and my yard is my territory, am I a legitimate state free of the US?

I would like to have seen them take the mines for themselves. If the company hired mercenaries, I would like to see the miners get outside reinforcements. I don't know if they would have fought to the very last, but if they did then they fought for their freedom, and were going to die in the mines anyways had they done nothing. What would you have them do?

Lobby their government representatives to improve regulations. Which is what American workers eventually did do. And it worked!

Far better than them getting a bunch of people killed only to fail to superior power ever did.

>What prevents a minority from seizing power and using force to take advantage of everyone else with their advantage?

Society. People who don't like what they are doing and taking up arms to stop them.

But they're more powerful than them. They seized power and now have the advantage. The guy with the gun is now in charge. How is he to be stopped?

Coercion isn't always bad. It certainly is when it's used to keep a monopoly on violence and justice.

But not when it's just a bunch of "communities" slaughtering each other?

Then what would the problem be in an anarchist society when the majority feel that oppressing minorities is wrong?

You claimed a democracy would not prevent a majority from abusing a minority. But this is false. America prevents this with the government. Even if the majority loathes a minority, they can do nothing about it without going up against the state protecting minority rights. In America majorities are routinely prevented from abusing minorities. This is because of the state. Even if a majority group wants to eliminate a far weaker minority, the state prevents them from doing so.

In your anarchy there's nothing to prevent the far stronger majority. Nothing. When you're the minority unless you have some advantage, you're at the mercy of the majority when there's no government.

>Lobby their government representatives to improve regulations. Which is what American workers eventually did do. And it worked!

And the Jews should have petitioned their government, and the victims of the Gulags should have done the same. It works so well doesn't it? The Virginia coal miners didn't start the fight, the coal company came in with a frikkin' tank and started slaughtering their families. There was a massive build up, all kinds of things were tried to get a better working environment. They didn't just up and grab guns.

Rayofash, what right did the miners have to forcibly take the company's property from them? What about "tank beats a bunch of guys with shovels" do you expect to play out differently in an anarchist society?

That doesn't work very well. Voting with your wallet however, that would be interesting. I would love to see voluntary taxes.

Have you ever had one of those pizza parties where it's time to collect the money and it comes up short somehow? And everybody swears they put in their share, but somehow you're off several bucks and you don't have enough for the tip? Welcome to a small preview of what "voluntary taxes" would be like.

Hell, we NOW have a situation where people simultaneously complain about cuts to government services (that affect them) and complain that taxes are too high. People insist they "don't get government benefits" when they receive all kinds of welfare. I see no reason to assume people would be any more honest or logical in an anarchist collective.

>Have you ever had one of those pizza parties where it's time to collect the money and it comes up short somehow? And everybody swears they put in their share, but somehow you're off several bucks and you don't have enough for the tip? Welcome to a small preview of what "voluntary taxes" would be like.

That's the point, people wouldn't pay for things they don't want or don't use.

Caanan existed, just not the mythological biblical one. There's a NOVA documentary about this if you're interested. And in the England example I'm talking about the Normans.

Good grief, the silly-goose history, it burns.

The "mythological biblical one" existed. Canaan is a geographical place, not a unified country. In "ancient" times, which you don't specify from your unnamed NOVA documentary, the primary political organizations were city-states where the religious and political/military leadership were a unified thing. The reason the Bible is always griping about the damn Canaanites is that they were the Israelites' neighbors. Saying "ancient Canaan" is about as silly as "England" - pretending that centuries, even millenia, of history involving large geographic areas and many waves of ethnic, religious and social groups can be collapsed into a single example.

So, where in ancient Canaan did this uprising by the poor happen and when? Did these successful rebels in fact establish an anarchist state? Do you believe there was no "agricultural life style" prior to the uprising?

Please don't waste everybody's time pointing to history, when you define history as "oh, I dunno, a while ago in this one place".